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bmoravenclaw

Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:28 pm

Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 4

I'm fairly new to fan fiction and there is one subject that completely confuses me. How on earth did the idea that Time Turner use would permanently age someone start?

In my opinon this goes against every previoulsy established concept surrounding time travel. ( I'm a heavy reader of sci-fi and fantasy and my friends and family have bestowed upon me an honorary degree in Space/Time Continuim Studies.) In each instance Hermione returned to her current time frame. Is that why Dumbledore is over 100? Maybe he's actually only 90. If this theory applied to dieting that would mean I actually weigh at least a 100 pounds more than I actually do.

I'm assuming that this was just a plot device to get Hermione to be of age before having relations with Snape but to tell you truth as soon as I see this; I move on to the next story.

Alynna

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 1:25 am

Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 24 Location: central Maryland

Here's the way I see this... she's going back in time and spending time back there. Say she goes to Arithmancy, and once she's done there, she goes back in time to take Muggle studies. She spends that whole hour in Muggle Studies, just like she did in Arithmancy, so she has lived two hours where everyone else has lived one. She returns to her proper time naturally, not by using the time turner. If she were to keep going back one hour, perpetually, she'd eventually get noticeably older. Or, if she went back, say, 100 years, she would be 113 (assuminge this takes place in POA) by the time she got back to the exact minute she'd left.

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which grows in the soul of the beholder
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Diana

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:02 am

Head Moderator Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 116

Quote:

I'm fairly new to fan fiction and there is one subject that completely confuses me. How on earth did the idea that Time Turner use would permanently age someone start?

I'm probably not the best person to answer this question, as I've only been a part of the fanfiction portion of the fandom for about a year now, but let me see if I can remember how this got started correctly.

There was, I believe back in 2000 or so, a story by a young writer, all of twelve at the time, featuring SS/HG. The story was, of course, not very well put together, but it also sparked an interests in SS/HG. Eventually the idea was re-done by another author, Sphinx. I have provided a link to her story on Aswinder. The latter is an excellent example of a well put together and thought provoking SS/HG. It still remains one of the best stories written, not only for SS/HG, but in the Potter-verse as a whole.

The Time-Turner fiasco started when a writer by the name of Riley started writing her "epic" (I use the term loosely, mind) Pawn to Queen. Originally, Hermione was to be sixteen in Riley's story, but after she got enough screaming reviewers - and rightfully so - commenting on the issue, she came up with the Time-Turner fiasco. Viola! Hermione, although still fully sixteen in body and mind, became eighteen in order to make "ethical" the situation that Snape found himself thrown into. In other words, Snape's molesting Hermione, "in order to save them both from the evil Lucius Malfoy and Voldemort" (note: another wildly overused and obnoxious SS/HG cliche given birth by this fic) was explained away by making Hermione eighteen through illogical magic.

Naturally, the story in question is one that I hate with a deep passion, and I generally avoid labeling fics within the community as hate, but I do make an except for PtQ.

In any case, that is how the Time-Turner cliche started.

http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=9016 - Letter From Exile One Merciful Morning -- Sphinx's fabulous SS/HG. Also, if you read her notes, there is a bit of SS/HG background history there as well.

http://www.witchfics.org/riley/ -- Pawn to Queen -- Riley's, erm, "epic" SS/HG. Never finished. There is also a good bit of SS/HG background wank, I mean history, here as well.

Diana

liquidscissors

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:02 am

Moderator Joined: 27 Dec 2004 Posts: 164

Quote:

I'm assuming that this was just a plot device to get Hermione to be of age before having relations with Snape but to tell you truth as soon as I see this; I move on to the next story.

Got it one. Cheap fanon device and nothing more.

If you're approaching Time Turners from a physics based sci-fi angle, it's just a deliberately placed irregular tug at time - the time turner pulls a thread loose from a flat timeline, but the regular flow of real time pulls that thread back into it's original place. You gain time when the thread is loose, but lose that time when the regular timeline re-establishes itself.

If a Time Turner affected the user in any way that wasn't directly self-induced (i.e. Hermione working herself too hard and not compensating with sleep), there is no way that a student - or anyone - would be able to use one, special circumstances or not.

As an aside, since OotP I've maintained that Time Turners were matched against the bell jar in the MoM and not the users sense of time - if you were a Dark wizard, imagine the damage you could do by destroying the cosmic tick and effectively getting yourself a rogue device that couldn't be regulated by a regular timeflow.

</nerd>

azazello

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:09 am

Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Posts: 183 Location: Northern UK

Here's the maths, by your friendly Finance Officer, who crunches numbers for a living.

In PtQ, and Roman Holiday, and thereafter any number of lesser rated but just as silly fics (from a mathematical pov at least), Hermione is usually held to have aged 3 years because she used the Timeturner in her third year to attend three extra classes. That's three extra classes, NOT three times the classes of a normal school week. Looking at canon, each magical class seems to happen on a weekly basis. So in fact, that would have Hermione ageing (always making the assumption that she aged at all - which is unlikely) THREE hours per week.

156 hours aging in a year (and that's if the school year was 52 weeks long, which it is not) does not an eighteen year old in year five make.

Let's assume that going back and re-doing an hour makes you an hour older. Where does that take us?

1. There is not 52 weeks in a schoolyear, but about 42 (she would not have used the timeturner in holidays - its use is strictly regulated and Hermione is a rulebook sorta girl).

2. The schoolday is probably about seven hours long. Teaching is almost certainly Monday - Friday.

3. Let's give this theory maximum benefit of total suspension of disbelief and do the sum: 42 x 7 x 5 x 3 (making the assumptiont that her school time is trebled, or lived three times in total) = 4410 hours. Divide by 24 to get the total number of days ageing = 184 days (roughly). Divide that by 28 days to get the months = That's six months.

Result of that being, if I was Hermione's mother, and she came home crying that her Potions professor had tried to cop a feel in year five, I'd be calling my lawyers, for in loco parentis damages.

In short, the timeturner ageing theory is mathematically stupid.

But I'm not done ripping the timeturner as a "thing" to shreds yet.

Canonically this device is important as a means to spring Sirius Black in book three. It's only there for that reason. What we do know is that it's use is strictly regulated by the Ministry no less. I cannot see it being given to an adolescent schoolgirl if she risked ageing. That's actually quite a scary side effect. Because if she ages through its use, there will be physical effects. The difference in physical maturity between a girl of fourteen and one of potentially eighteen (if we follow the ageing theorists) is huge.

And if she did age three years, why the hell didn't anyone notice that her tits had grown?

Result:

Az - Umpteen points

Timeturner theorists - zero.

Moral being if you wish to write channish crap, have the courage of your lack of moral convictions. There are always DELETE retentives like me sitting dusting off the calculator.

Last edited by azazello on Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:40 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony ~ Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Alynna

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:59 am

Joined: 01 Mar 2005 Posts: 24 Location: central Maryland

azazello wrote:

Canonically this device is important as a means to spring Sirius Black in book three. It's only there for that reason. What we do know is that it's use is strictly regulated by the Ministry no less. I cannot see it being given to an adolescent schoolgirl if she risked ageing. That's actually quite a scary side effect. Because if she ages through its use, there will be physical effects.

The theory behind how this might all affect a time traveler, from the regulation to the time itself, is what fascinates me.

Seems pretty sketchy, to me, giving a kid something like this in the first place. Still, I don't see how she could spend time in the past without it impacting her age... otherwise, she could just keep flipping the thing and live forever, cause all sorts of havoc (granted, it would all be in the same few hours, but imagine the damage you could do). So I agree that the time turner is regulated somehow - perhaps this one only goes back a few hours at a time, perhaps it can only be used while school is in session.

Oh, this thread is about time turner fics? ... Er, I don't actually read those... Overused (and incorrectly used) plot device, is what it is. I love the calculations, az.

_________________
"Something there is in beauty
which grows in the soul of the beholder
like a flower..."

bmoravenclaw

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 12:09 pm

Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 4

Az, I too would like to thank you for you math and everyone for your contributuion to the discussion. When I tied to suspend my own disbelief about everyone traveling around in their own personal time bubble and did the math to come up with just how old would Hermione be; I got one month due to moderate use during the school year (42 weeks x 6 days x 3 hours = 756 extra hours or 31.5 days) .

But then I ran into two other problems immediately...
1) Would Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryfindor House allow her star pupil to use such a device without warning her of all possible consequences? I think not!
and
2) While I guess that there are some people out there just waiting for the clock to tick midnight so that the object of their desire is transformed from "jail bait" to "of age"; I simply cannot picture Albus Dumbledore turning to Professor Snape with a twinkle (or is that a leer?) in his eye and saying "She's 3 months older than you thought, have at her man!"

I know I'm over-analyzing but I find this trend disturbing.

azazello

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 12:57 pm

Joined: 29 Nov 2004 Posts: 183 Location: Northern UK

Quote:

I simply cannot picture Albus Dumbledore turning to Professor Snape with a twinkle (or is that a leer?) in his eye and saying "She's 3 months older than you thought, have at her man!"

That's just about exactly what he does in Pawn to Queen. There is Snape, who has just sexually assaulted Hermione to save her (actually a quick stupefy and obliviate aimed at Lucius Malfoy in that scene would have done the same thing, but why let logic get in the way of a good rapefic? Remember kids, for every rape you write, add a hundred reviews in this ship) and he is wangsting in the Head's study afterwards, about what a twat he was (in that fic, well, I'd not argue with him, he emphatically was a twat) for assaulting a child, when DD beams with the Timeturner theory.

"Miss Granger is eighteen!" Oh, well that makes that fact that her teacher has just sexually abused her somehow okay...

Timeturner fics involving timetravel are usually worse. I can only think of Shags the Dustmop's "A Tragic Circle" that shows any individual thinking here - and in that case it is Young Severus who ends up being in the canon era.

Most of them involve Hermione going back in time and befriending young Severus or worse still getting raped by NewbieDeathEater!Severus.

It's not much good asking me - just about the only timetravel story I ever read that impressed me was Terminator and Terminator 2 because they looked effectively at the consequences of small things left behind by a time traveller (a dismembered metal arm, and a microchip) and ran with it. Probably so good because the idea originated with Harlan Ellison who does understand how to create a conundrum around time and space.

I hate the timeturner in canon. It's an irritating and creaky deus ex machina, and while I love JKR's writing, it's reads to me as something bolted on, rather than a thought through plot device.

And if there are such devices, why has no one gone back in time and offed baby Tom Riddle?

Last edited by azazello on Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony ~ Monty Python and the Holy Grail

bmoravenclaw

Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:20 pm

Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 4

Well, I thank everyone for trying to clear up this issue for me. I don't blame Rowling because I don't think she ever suggeted or implied that Time Turner use would age a witch or wizard. As for poor Hermione, in my world rape, statatury or otherwise is not the stuff of fantasy. I think I'll stick to the humor and parody catagories from now on.

(*** sigh *** only 129 days to go.)

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